Defender Trait

Am I the only one that thinks the Defender trait is pretty worthless?

It gives a 10% strength bonus inside your own borders, and a 10% withdrawal chance outside your borders.

Compare with Aggressve, for example. That gives you Combat I free on all units. That's a 20% bonus at ALL times, inside or outside your borders. And it allows newly trained units to specialise immediately, going for shock, cover, etc.

Defender does allow double speed of walls, but they've always been a pretty cheap improvement in any case, so it's not that much of a benefit.

I kind of feel Defender is a waste of a trait slot, and it puts both Elohim leaders at a disadvantage, since they only have one other "real" trait, being that Tolerant is a civ trait.

Since the bonus strength is situational, and only works within your own borders, I think it needs to be more powerful than Combat I, like 30%. A 10% withdrawal chance is pretty pitiful, too. anything less than 30% withdrawal isn't worth much at all.

What does everyone think?

One of the finer points of FfH balance is that some traits are meant to be much better than others, so that there's a way to keep the ones belonging to civs with more powerful abilities in check. In the case of defender, you take a look at the civs whose leaders have it and realize it's a small perk for civs that would become too strong with another "real" trait. (Except for Sandalphon, who blows. But buffing defender for his sake wouldn't be worth the effect that making Auric, Ethne and Garrim even stronger would have, and while Einion and Amelanchier aren't quite as scary as those three they are competent, and not in a huge need of a boost.)

WarKirby said:

Defender does allow double speed of walls

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Double speed Palisade and Archery Range according to the Pedia...

In a way that actually supports the Tolerant trait.... in a weird offensive sense.

You capture a city and can more quickly get defenses built in it (if that's what your choice is)

Granted, Auric is awesome if you get Letum Frigus first, but without that, Charismatic alone just makes him kind of meh.

Not sure what's so great about Enthne. Creativ e is a decent trait for early expansion, and quickly becomes less useful later on. Tolerant is an awesome thing certainly, but Einion does that too. Tolerant is kind of a unique mechanic for the elohim, though., I don't think they hae enough raw ability because of the weak defender trait.

Alexis, for example, has Aggressive + Philosophical, but she also gets awesomely powerful vampires, suicide bombing axemen, etc. Most civs are comprised of a combination of the leader's traits, and some unique mechanic. but I think the elohim are lacking in one half of that.

Defender is pretty decent trait imo. Double production speed of palisade is quite useful early on against tougher opponents. +10% homeland strength, while minuscule compared to what aggressive offers, is still quite nice early on. The +10% withdrawal allows for slightly better cavalry and allows 1/10 units that would die from a combat to survive. Not a great trait, but considering the civs that have defender: illians, sidar, elohim, all of them are quite powerful already (imo).

And Amelanchier with defender / Raider is great for cavellary.

It's terrible, but traits aren't meant to be balanced as mentioned. It's a problem for Amelanchier though, he's pretty rubbish compared to the other elves. He was good when Raider was good, but now it's mediocre and he sucks*. Not sure how to fix him without giving the likes of Auric an unneeded boost. Though Thessa with the almost as useless expansive (for elves, it's solid for others), isn't much better. Maybe since elves are good Arendel just needs a nerf.

*relative to other elves, obviously he'd do reasonably well even with no traits since elves are so good

Also disagree with Sandalphon being bad here (what a surprize... ). Yes his traits suck but they help the important points of the civ (getting more shades and getting wonders up which help with specialists / chosen victory) and the civ more than makes up for it imo.

For him homeland promotion (which you also misread, it gives +10% Withdrawl everywhere, not just outside of your borders.) directly translates into more shades (because even the cheap warriors and scouts do withdraw the odd battle they would lose despite good odds when highly experienced and shortly before level 6. Also getting one XP in the process which brings the given unit even closer to shading...)
And Sidar are all about shades...

So, yes it is weak but it has its uses still (stronger recon and especially mounted because of better withdrawl) and its needed to balance otherwise strong civs / leaders. Because the mod is macro-balanced on civ level not micro-balanced on feature level.
(in Vanilla Bts the Civs are mostly just balanced by differences in their traits + a few minor other things and thus the leaders should be rather balanced compared to each other (even there single-trait comparison isn't really appropriate btw. except for tactical discussions on how to utilize the traits.). Here that's vastly different)


@ Yaotzin: Disagree about Amelanchier here.
I find him the best of the 3 possibilites for the Ljosalfar.
With Arendel being a close second now after the most recent changes to Spiritual.
Thessa is ok now with the new expansive still not stellar (but the civ takes care of the rest. The Elves are strong and Archery really got boosted recently which should really have helped the Ljos...).
All 3 now offer quite different priorities for playstyle (With Amelanchier having slight preference of Recon + Mounted both of which i do like so its not so much a wonder i like him. Raider still is a stellar trait just no longer beyond reason) and thus are really nice (so my opinion is not to be viewed as a very strong one since for me they are not directly comparable.).


If one would really like to boost defender, a small chance for defensive strike and damage (5% each) in addition to its current effects might be a neat small addition.
But i have my serious doubts that would be necessary.

Faster Archery Ranges alone makes Defender worth it with Amelanchier.

WarKirby said:

Not sure what's so great about Enthne. Creativ e is a decent trait for early expansion, and quickly becomes less useful later on. Tolerant is an awesome thing certainly, but Einion does that too. Tolerant is kind of a unique mechanic for the elohim, though., I don't think they hae enough raw ability because of the weak defender trait.

Alexis, for example, has Aggressive + Philosophical, but she also gets awesomely powerful vampires, suicide bombing axemen, etc. Most civs are comprised of a combination of the leader's traits, and some unique mechanic. but I think the elohim are lacking in one half of that.

Click to expand...

I agree that Defender is mostly a useless trait for the Elohim. It was OK when they got Spiritual with it, but the Spiritual was taken away some versions back.

I never understood the example you gave of Alexis having Philosophical which gives a bonus in building Elder Councils. The Calibim cannot build Elder Councils. Surely there must be a trait with a better fit that can allow all of its features to be used by Alexis.

How would Garrim be overpowered with a real trait instead of one that doesnt even apply to 90% of his units? Its compleatly worthless for him.

You just answered your own question. Defender is even worse for the Luchuirp than it is for most civs, so they'd gain even more from having it replaced by a good trait.

The Luchuirp leaders should really go back to their old traits. Garrim was a lot better when he was Arcane.

I did wonder that, actually. A race that revolves around enchanted constructs.... seems silly for them not to have arcane or similar.

Industrious/Arcane. Who needs financial anyway, horribly overpowered trait that it is.

Defender is not very useful on lower difficulty levels. I assume those who find it useful are playing on high difficulty or are facing barbarian hordes?